


since you came back (i see things differently)

by bucketofrice



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: F/M, comeback era, fluff and hopefully some humour, it's fine, they're literally fated
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-29
Updated: 2018-08-29
Packaged: 2019-07-04 03:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,305
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15832725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice/pseuds/bucketofrice
Summary: Family mottos, telephone calls and elementary school history assignments.





	since you came back (i see things differently)

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, you can't make this stuff up. The Moir family motto is: Virtute, non aliter. By virtue, not otherwise.
> 
> It's kind of annoying just how much of a romcom their lives are.
> 
> Title is from "And then Some" by Arkells.

**_march 12, 2017. 4:21 p.m. est_ **

It’s right there, on her phone screen, with a citation and everything. It’s a screenshot by a fan, tagging them both, two emojis included.

Her first instinct is to do a Google search, because this _cannot_ be real, but sure enough, there’s the Wikipedia page, and once she scrolls down, the offending sentence pops into view. The words and letters stare back at her, black on white and clear as day.

The fucking Moir family motto is _Virtute, non aliter — By virtue, not otherwise._

It’s fate. They were _literally_ written in the stars and she’s a bit too shellshocked to believe it. She retweets the tweet, because how could she not, adding in three shocked emojis for good measure. _Holy hell_ , she thinks, as she’s holding her phone in still-shaking hands, this is _definitely_ going on the seemingly never-ending list of absurd things that have happened in her and Scott’s lives so far.

Because why not have her last name pop up in his family motto on top of the thousands of other coincidences that had to happen to get two kids from Ontario to the cusp of winning yet another Olympic medal in ice dance?

Why not have every single aspect of her life remind her how she’s tethered to Scott in some way?

Because once upon a time, she had wanted skating lessons, and Kate had chosen a rink in Ilderton, and Carol had decided she and Scott looked good together, and Scott had quit hockey and she had turned down the National Ballet and stopped growing, and Suzanne and Paul and Igor and Marina had chosen them, one after another, over and over again.

Because she’d been able to push through the pain until she needed surgery, and then, after surgery, through recovery too, and because Scott hadn’t left her (he’d gone silent, but he hadn’t given up on them), not once, not twice.

Because home ice and an Olympic debut meant kismet, and gold was suddenly in their grasp. Because even though Russia and Russian coaches betrayed them, even though they felt like the only two people left in the world, the tinny taste of silver in the back of their throats and the future uncertain and bleak, they’d come back to each other, like magnets homing in on each other’s poles.

Because the third time was going to be the charm, _had to be the charm_ , because they were _this_ close to an undefeated season, because this time, they were doing it for each other, and for no one else.

Because, well… because apparently some English nobleman in whatever century had had some sort of morality complex.

“Scott!”

She feels more than hears the heavy plodding of his footsteps as he walks down the hallway (the fact that he is the picture of fluidity and grace on the ice and a veritable elephant off of it still amazes her sometimes) and into her bedroom.

“You okay there, T?” The concern on his face is palpable, his eyebrows are raised and tilted just so. He’s been making some kind of b2ten-approved slow-cooker stew for the both of them, and she takes a millisecond to appreciate the tea towel tucked into his back pocket. It’s achingly domestic.

“Look at this!” She jumps up from where she’s been perched on her bed and practically shoves the phone in his face.

She sees his eyes move side to side as they scan her phone screen and widen just a fraction of a degree as comprehension dawns on his features. “Huh,” he says, shrugging his shoulders and letting out a non-committal chuckle. “That’s pretty cool.”

He gently squeezes her arm before turning to exit the room. “For the stew, I think I’m just gonna throw caution to the wind and put in a splash of red. Sound good?”

She’s momentarily frozen to the spot, because that is _not_ the reaction such a life-altering discovery warrants. No, he’s being way too nonchalant about this whole business. And that just won’t do.

She runs down the hall as fast as her sock-clad feet will take her, right into her kitchen where Scott is standing, staring intently at the contents of his crockpot (he brought it over; she doesn’t own one, why would she?) the tea towel now slung over one shoulder. He’s humming a tune and she has half a mind to take the damn piece of cloth and whack him with it. Does he have no idea what this _means_?

“Scott!” God, she’s beginning to sound like a broken record.

He turns from the crockpot to face her, hands on his hips, a confused look on his face. “Yes?”

“Did you not see what I just showed you? Your fucking family motto has my last name in it!”

She knows that her cursing will get a reaction out of him because she so rarely does it, and sure enough, he takes a step toward her. “Yeah, I saw. It’s neat!”

He says it with an air of nonchalance that she has a hard time believing is truly genuine, as she watches him awkwardly scratch the back of his neck and plaster on a smile.

When she was ten and Scott was twelve, she remembers that he burst into the rink one afternoon, running across the floor as fast as his skates and guards would take him. He stopped just short of the boards and she remembers asking him why he looked so out of breath.

“Tutu, we were born in the same hospital!” His eyes were wide and his hair was sticking out at weird angles but what she can still picture so, so clearly is the huge grin on his face. He looked like he’d just discovered the secret to the universe.

Which is why she’s so surprised at his tepid reaction to _this_ particular piece of information, because surely, finding his family motto must be more significant than them being born in the same hospital. They did grow up only twenty minutes apart, after all.

She’s about to make that point to him, with a considerable amount of gusto, when his phone starts ringing and he shoots her an apologetic look. He wipes one hand on the tea towel and swipes his phone off the counter, balancing it in the crook between his neck and shoulder as he wipes his other hand clean of any sauce.

The whole thing has him hopping around on one foot so he’s facing away from her when he answers the call. “Hi mom,” she hears him say, “nothing much, just making dinner.”

A pause.

“Yeah, T is here too. Sure, I can put you on speaker.”

* * *

He knows that as soon as he sets his phone on the counter and puts his mother on speaker, it’s game over for him. It’s going to take Tessa approximately thirty seconds to tell her _all_ about the tweet she saw today, and Alma is not going to be as fazed by this “new” discovery as she objectively should be.

Then, and this Scott knows with the same level of certainty he feels when his blade digs into the ice, she will suddenly remember that at age ten, he had a family history project in grade four in which he had to construct a family tree and do research about his ancestors.

This project — and Scott knows this because he has a very distinct memory of rifling past it a few months ago when he was looking for some old Leafs memorabilia in his closet at his parents’ house — also involved drawing and colouring in his family crest.

Yeah, this evening is not gonna go well for him.

_He is so incredibly screwed._

“Hi Alma,” Tessa says, right on cue.

“Hi sweetheart.”

There’s just over a minute there, one blissful count of eighty-seven seconds (yes, he times it, because if he’s about to face his demise he’d at least like to know how long he’s got till it hits him) where they catch up about Montreal and Ilderton and everything in between.

Tessa tells Alma that their prep for Worlds is going well, and that they’re excited to fly out to Helsinki in a few short weeks. She reassures her that no, the training isn’t too much, that Marie and Patch and b2ten have it handled and they’re doing well. And that once it’s over and the off-season starts Kate wants to have them all over and will be making a big batch of chicken Divan.

“I’ll make sure to let Joe know,” Alma says, and Scott can feel the inevitable shift in conversation topic.

“Alma, you won’t believe what someone tweeted at Scott and me today,” Tessa starts off, her eyes wide and voice high and excited. Scott, meanwhile, is starting intently at the white tiled floor of her kitchen like it’s the most interesting sight in the whole world.

_Ah, shit._

“It turns out, and I still can’t quite believe it, that the Moir family motto is _virtute, non aliter_!” Scott cringes internally, screws his eyes shut and holds his breath like that will somehow make the whole situation (or him, at the very least) disappear.

“That’s Latin for _by virtue, not otherwise_!”

“Yes, dear. I thought you knew?”

Scott opens his eyes just long enough to glance over at the clock on Tessa’s stove before promptly shutting them again. Well, 5:04 p.m. seems as good a time as any to die, if he thinks about it.

He can see the headstone already:

_Scott Patrick Moir._

_September 2, 1987 — March 12, 2017._

_Beloved son and brother._

_Cause of death? Forgetting to tell his skating partner they were literally fated to meet._

“Why would I know?”

“I thought Scottie must’ve told you ages ago, when he first found out. Well, it was a terribly long time ago…”

He feels more than sees Tessa’s eyes go wide and her head snap over to him, her gaze as cold as the ice they skate on. “Scott,” she hisses, and he has to open his eyes. “You _knew_? And you _didn’t tell me_?”

The sound that escapes his throat is somewhere between a squeak and a whimper and Tessa’s eyes shoot daggers.

“Alma,” she says, voice sickeningly sweet, “I’m so sorry, but could we call you back at another time?”

Scott is fully convinced that his mother has clued in on the fact that he’s about to get yelled at (and rightfully so) because he hears a chuckle come through the phone line. “Of course. I’ll see you both soon. Joe sends hugs.”

“Tell him we say hello,” Tessa says, adding in a quick “bye, Alma” before she hangs up the phone and flips it face-down on her marble countertop. She turns toward him and braces her hands on her hips.

“I think you owe me an explanation, Moir.”

_Yeah, he probably does._

“Well,” he starts wringing his hands together like he always does when he’s particularly uncomfortable in a situation, “do you remember those stupid family history projects they make you do in elementary school?”

She nods. Okay, he can work with that.

“We did one in grade four, and they had us make a book or something weird like that. One of the pages was a family tree and we had to put the crest on there if we could find it” — he stops to scratch behind his ear, takes a deep breath — “and obviously, I did, and I found the motto to put in it.”

“And you didn’t tell me.”

“I was ten, T! It was a stupid school project. I think I forgot about it as soon as I handed it in.” He’s grasping at straws here, and he knows it, but he’s getting defensive. Sue him.

“Scott,” she says, squaring her jaw. “You ran into the rink looking like you’d just finished a marathon when you were twelve to tell me you figured out we were born in the same _hospital_.”

Oh yeah. He had done that.

“I mean, that’s objectively freaky though. Like, the same doctor that delivered me might have delivered you too… that’s just so weird to think about.” By the look on her face, he can tell he’s really not helping himself here.

“We grew up like twenty minutes from each other! Ilderton doesn’t even have a hospital!”

He can see she’s working herself up about this, getting more exasperated by the second, and he hates nothing more than to see her like this. Especially knowing he caused it. (He’s dimly aware of the fact that maybe, just maybe, there’s a deeper reason to her current spiral toward panic, but he pushes that aside for the moment.)

When all else fails, and this Scott learned a long time ago, the best strategy is to apologize, and try to calm down the situation. He endeavours to do just that, placing gentle hands on Tessa’s shoulders.

“I’m sorry I forgot,” he starts, “and I’m sorry I didn’t tell you I knew when you showed me the Twitter thing earlier.”

* * *

She knows she’s probably over-reacting at this point, knows that logically, the tweet and the ensuing realization change absolutely nothing about anything. It’s just another quirk in the universe that happens to make her and Scott, well, her and Scott.

And yet…

As he places his hands on her shoulders and starts apologizing, she’s tempted to pull away and put her arms across her chest and stand there, defiant and strong. She stops herself though, stops from retreating into her own shell and trying to internalize everything in the hope that it’ll just go away.

She’s been getting better at it, at the whole communicating and talking about her feelings thing, ever since they sat down with JF about two months ago. Because, coincidentally, about eight weeks ago, she and Scott had done the unthinkable. They’d slept together — again.

(She still can’t believe it happened sometimes, since for so long she thought them ending up tangled together in one of their beds was forever going to remain a singular experience, intrinsically tied to Carmen like that one particular lift.)

This time though, they’re going into it with open eyes and clear intentions. He’s told her he loves her, she’s told him the same. They’ve agreed they’re not dating, but they’re also not _not dating_ and seeing other people is out of the question. Deep down, they both know this is it.

And yet…

There are days where she wonders. Wonders if the only reason this is working out between them is because the universe said “you two, you gotta stick together” one too many times and they’d actually taken the signs seriously. Wonders if she and Scott would’ve even met in any other version of their lives.

“T?” She looks up, snaps out of her daze to come face-to-face with Scott, sporting his best puppy dog eyes. Damn that man and his freakishly expressive eyebrows. “Hey, I’m really sorry.”

She lets out a deep breath and sags forward into his embrace, their foreheads touching together. He wraps his arms around her and they stand there, in the middle of her kitchen, swaying gently from side to side.

She’s grateful, in that moment, that he’s holding her and not asking questions. She knows they’ll come, and rightly so, but right now, she needs to get her bearings again.

She extricates herself from his grip a minute later, takes a step back and looks down at the ground. “I’m sorry,” she says, voice small, “I shouldn’t have yelled.”

He tips her chin up with his thumb. “It’s okay. I’m the one who forgot to tell you about the whole thing, and pretended I didn’t know.”

“No, Scott, you were ten. Ten year old boys aren’t supposed to think of this as life changing information. Hell, _I’m_ not supposed to think of it like that. It’s just another coincidence, right?”

“A pretty funny one, at that.” He’s grinning now, sporting that deliberately lopsided smile she loves so much and she feels her own mouth quirk up at the sides.

“I mean… what are the odds?”

He laughs. “Too small to count, kiddo.”

He pulls her in for another hug and she melts into him willingly, lets him scatter kisses across the top of her head. When she starts murmuring something into his shirt, he pushes her back slightly.

“I think,” she says, her voice scarcely above a whisper, “that I sometimes worry that we’re just doing all of this”— she gestures across her kitchen, all-encompassing —“because it feels inevitable.” She looks up at him, needs to make eye contact when she says this. “I know that I love you, and I want this, but I have no idea how to do it, you know?”

He nods, looking like he’s trying to carefully come up with an answer.

“Babe, I don’t need a long-dead English count or whatever to tell me we were meant to be together. All I need is you, and me, and maybe some figure skating — and the rest we’ll figure out along the way, okay?”

She kisses him then — hard and insistent — fisting her hands in his hair and pulling him close, because he somehow always knows exactly what to say and how to reassure her. Screw the universe, she thinks, she and Scott alone get to decide what path they’re going to take. And right now, that path looks a lot like making out in her kitchen as the crockpot cooks their dinner and an undefeated season sits within their grasps.

* * *

 That night, as they’re tangled up in one another under the covers in her bed, her head pillowed on his chest, his arm wrapped around her, he starts speaking softly in her ear.

“Once upon a time, in a land far away,” he murmurs and she shifts so she’s propped up on one elbow. She’s confused as to where he’s going with this. He just smiles and shushes her. “There lived a brave knight named Scott, who rode a horse and had a truly impressive set of eyebrows.”

She giggles and he presses a kiss to the top of her head. “He and a fair maiden named Tessa teamed up and fought dragons and evil kings and eventually got their own kingdom, all to themselves. But, it was the middle ages, so they all needed big fancy family crests.”

“Scott—” she starts, but he shakes his head. This man. Insufferable.

“The knight got them to make the Moir family crest, because he was the king, and they said the maiden couldn’t have one of her own. Now, he was mad, because she deserved just as much credit as he did. But, he was a very clever fellow.”

“Was he now?”

“Yes! I mean, he got the maiden to help him in the first place. That was pretty genius of him. Anyway, he decided to make his family motto in honour of her. Can you guess what it was?”

Even in the moonlight, she can see the sparkle in his eyes.

“Hmmm… something about her _virtue_?”

“Funny you should say that. It was _Virtute, non aliter — By virtue, not otherwise_ and it became the motto of the whole kingdom. They were all virtuous and kind, and lived happily ever after.”

“Of course they did.” She has to giggle, at this man and his stupid dopey grin and the fact that he’ll make up fairytales for her if he thinks it’ll make her feel better. She pulls him in for a kiss, long and deep and languorous.

“It’s just you and me against the universe, T.”

She smiles into another kiss and murmurs “together” onto his lips.

Fated or not, it doesn’t really matter, but always, always — _together_.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments make my day. Feel free to yell at me here, or on Tumblr, @good-things-come-in-threes, or Twitter, @_bucketofrice.


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